N108.1bn saved by Federal Government from Bank Charges – AGF

Since the commencement of the Treasury Single Account in September 2015, a total of N108.1bn has been saved by the Federal Government from bank charges for the management of accounts of its Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

The amount represents the various charges and account maintenance fees that were hitherto imposed by the Deposit Money Banks for holding government funds.

Alhaji Ahmed Idris, the Accountant General of the Federation, gave the figure while speaking at a two-day Workshop program for Finance Journalists, on the TSA and other Public Financial Management Reforms, in Abuja.

The Accountant General of the Federation revealed that before the TSA policy was introduced into the public sector, as part of the public financial management reforms, a monthly sum of N4.7bn was incurred by the Federal Government as bank charges, interest on loans, and account maintenance fees amongst other charges.

He stated that through the policy, the government had been able to block leakages and it has assisted the government to overcome the burden of indiscriminate borrowings by the MDAs, thus saving government a lot of bank charges associated with borrowing.

“The TSA has enabled us to make tremendous gains. We have successfully eliminated multiple banking arrangements resulting in consolidation of over 20,000 bank accounts, which were spread over the Deposit Money Banks across the country”

Idris noted that a major objective of the reforms was to support the fight against corruption in the country. He added that the Federal Government has commenced the process of making payments of the backlog of promotion arrears to affected civil servants. He also mentioned that about N13.2bn had been provided for that purpose and he pointed out that in order to check the rate of abuse of the process, their accounts would be credited directly after the necessary verification had been done.

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